Web Services are widely used in modern applications. The term “web service” usually refers to an application programming interface (API) which is accessed and executed on a remote server, which hosts the requested service.
A load testing tool is software designed to examine an application behavior under various load conditions. The testing tool can emulate numerous concurrent users to simulate real-life loads on the tested application. When doing so, the testing tool collects information from various infrastructure components (e.g. system servers), which is analyzed. HP's LoadRunner typically may include several different tools: Virtual User Generator (VuGen), Controller, load generators, Analysis and Launches.
When automatically recording any business process in a load testing tool, such as, for example, LoadRunner™—a popular load testing application available from Hewlett Packard Inc (HP)—various Web Service calls may be found in that process.
Currently, when using LoadRunner and finding a Web Service call the appropriate Web Service Description Language (WSDL) is downloaded manually. WSDL may be an Extensible Markup Language (XML) format for describing network services as a set of endpoints operating on messages containing either document-oriented information or procedure-oriented information. The automation user also has to manually configure the request settings such as security. In the protocols-heavy domain of web services (for example WS-Security, WS-Addressing) this is a major overhead.